By Adam Lucas
1. Oklahoma continues to roll, earning a 9-3 win over Carolina in the first game of the best-of-three national championship series.
2. As advertised, the Oklahoma offense is swinging the bat very well. Beyond just the nine runs that they scored (on 14 hits), the damage could have been worse. Carolina got quality defensive plays from Carter French and Owen Hull in the outfield to limit the Sooner scoring, and there were several other more routine plays that were hit very hard. The Sooners have now had 35 offensive innings in Omaha. They have gone 1-2-3 just six times.
3. Oklahoma simply controlled the game offensively in every possible way. In addition to the hitting, they stole three bases. That’s against a UNC defense that had allowed only 20 stolen bases in the first 64 games of the year, but has now allowed six in the past three games.
4. Oklahoma freshman pitcher Cord Rager did an admirable job of steadying the ship after he struggled through the first inning. Carolina smacked four hits on his first 17 pitches and scored two runs. Over his next 83 pitches, the Heels managed just one hit and scored only one more run (which came in the first inning). Using the bullpen in the first inning would have been a near-disaster for Oklahoma; instead, Rager took the game into the sixth.
5. Jason DeCaro has had occasional trouble finishing hitters with two strikes this year–most recently in the Chapel Hill Regional–and it happened again on Saturday. Five of Oklahoma’s seven hits against him in his 3.2 innings were with two strikes, including an 0-2 double, an 0-2 solo homer, a 2-2 double after a 3-2 walk in which he got ahead 1-2, a 2-2 two-run single and a 2-2 RBI single.
6. The big blow in that fourth inning was the two-run single, which came off the bat of ninth-place hitter Kyle Branch, who entered the game batting .212. That seemed to signify the way OU was pounding the ball throughout the order all afternoon. For the first time since the Southern Cal grand slam in game one of the super regional, it felt like Carolina was staggered a little during that inning.
7. How unusual was that frame? A throwing error created the Heels’ first error in Omaha. Carolina entered the game with just three errors in nine postseason games. That four-run fourth was essentially the difference in the game.
8. Oklahoma came in hot offensively and showed it off immediately in the top of the first. And it was the poster child for that momentum, Deiten LaChance, who caused the damage with a two-run homer. Inexplicably, LaChance did not homer in his first 107 at-bats of the season. After homering in his first two at-bats today, he had recorded 18 homers in his next 129 at-bats.
9. But the Heels had an answer in the bottom of the inning. Jake Schaffner singled and Owen Hull continued to power the ball the other way, collecting a double to left (which Oklahoma probably misplayed by throwing the ball to third instead of second, allowing Hull to easily move into second). Gavin Gallaher then came through with a 3-2 single up the middle that tied the score, and Colin Hynek’s sacrifice fly made it a one-run lead. In hindsight, though, that first inning feels like a missed opportunity on a day when it was going to take a bushel of runs to win the game. The Heels needed about one more good swing of the bat to turn it into a huge inning and knock Rager out, but they couldn’t find it. That was part of a day in which the bottom half of the order struggled–spots five through nine in the order went 1-15 with six strikeouts. The one hit was a single.
10. Carolina had four hits on the first four at-bats of the game…and then collected just three in the next 35 plate appearances.
11. French made the outfield play of the postseason in the top of the third (great shot of it above by Ainsley Fauth). Jason Walk rocketed a ball 107 mph off the bat to deep right, but French tracked it and made a leaping catch at the top of the fence. The catch was so good that even the Sooners couldn’t believe it–they challenged the out, but the call was upheld.
12. In a best case scenario, we look back and view Tom Chmielewski as an unsung hero. The lefty entered the game in the seventh and mixed a series of pitches that seemed to keep OU off balance. In addition to allowing just one run in two innings, he might have provided a window into the best way to attack the Sooners.
13. Considering we’re basically driving distance from Norman, it was a very good showing from Carolina fans in Omaha. Even after two days of some airport hiccups across the country and an accelerated start time, the red/blue split in the Charles Schwab Field stands was approximately 60-40. With the Sooners holding a chance to win the title tomorrow, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more of them decide to make the seven-hour drive on Sunday.
14. The Tar Heels will now try to even the series tomorrow at 2:30 Eastern, hopefully drawing on recent experience in the super regional when they recovered from dropping the first game to Southern Cal and won the series.